Disclaimer: The events described in this blog post are true. The names of those involved have been changed, however, to protect their privacy.
Reuniting with an old friend and discovering he’s a part of the rape culture problem in America was an eye-opening, but not unexpected, experience for me. Addressing his problematic attitudes and behaviors was an uncomfortable, but necessary, task.
Nine years ago, my friend Jesse and I started college together and enjoyed what I consider to be a fairly standard big state university experience. We drank underage at parties, we rushed the same fraternity, we wanted to be part of the hookup culture we saw glorified by Hollywood and happening around us—as both of us were sexual novices. At the end of the day, we earned good grades, graduated on time with our desired degrees, and landed jobs in our fields of study immediately afterward. After limited communication over the years, Jesse and I met up a recently for our fraternity brother’s wedding. That’s when I realized my old college buddy, unknowingly perpetuates rape culture’s ideology that normalizes sexual assault, abuse, and harassment.
To be clear, rape culture does not mean we live in a society that supports rape. Jesse does not condone rape by any means. Instead, rape culture trivializes and struggles to combat sexual violence. It’s more like institutional racism which exists without people needing to run around shouting “I hate n******!” or in this case, “I stand with rapists!” In other words, rape culture is the notion men and women have come to accept sexual aggression as a fact of life. It is normalized, excused or tolerated. Victims are often blamed when they are assaulted.
Although this piece focuses on rape and harassment committed by cis men against cis women, sexual violence and rape culture can affect anyone, regardless of gender, including trans and gender non-conforming individuals, as well as cis men.
Rape Culture is:
- The media euphemizing rape as “sexual misconduct” or simply “sex”
- The hashtag #NotAllMen in response to #MeToo where men used the cop-out of ‘it wasn’t me!’ instead of supportively listening to the outpouring of assault and harassment stories, and asking ‘how can I help?’
- Sexual assault prevention programs emphasizing how women should carry whistles and pepper spray to avoid being raped instead of men being told to obtain clear verbal consent
- Women feeling less safe walking the streets at night, taking public transportation or working out in public than men
- ”Jokes” like this: If you rape a prostitute, is it rape or shoplifting?
- Law & Order episodes where female characters are bound, gagged, leashed, raped and murdered for the entertainment of viewers
- Catcalls that aren’t offensive because they should be “taken as a compliment”
- Fans supporting athletes, coaches, and athletic directors charged with rape and accusing their victims of destroying careers
- ”Girls who dress like that are asking for it.”
- ”Why are you being such a tease?”
- Come on, I’m doing you a favor.”
- ”Do you have a man?”
- “Can you help my friend out? He just got out of a relationship.”
- ”Why are you dancing like that if you don’t want anyone to dance with you?”
- “I can tell you want it.”
- ”What does she expect after getting that drunk?”
- “Boys will be boys.”
- ”The exam totally raped me.”
- ”He’s such a player. Dude scores every weekend.”
- 6 out of 1,000 rapists will end up in prison
We see rape culture in movies, pop music, high school and college campuses across the country, and even the highest levels of U.S. government. In September President Donald Trump set a disturbing victim-blaming precedent as the stories of sexual assault victims were discounted or barred from Congressional consideration during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate committee testimony and confirmation process.
Don’t get me started on Trump, but in one tweet, he suggested that Kavanaugh’s sexual assault accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, lied about the allegations saying, “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!” Still, vehement critics of Trump may knowingly or unintentionally engage in sexist, misogynistic, harassing or otherwise demeaning behavior that promulgates issues of rape culture. Now more than ever, remaining silent is not the answer.
When you encounter language or behaviors that embody rape culture, there are various courses of action that you can take, such as:
- Actively raising awareness of what someone says or does by starting a peaceful dialogue (or heated argument) with this individual. Of course, standing up for against injustice has the potential to cause a scene or sever a relationship.
- Making a comment that draws attention to the troubling language or behavior you witness, but letting it go if the individual ignores you or pushes back against your point of view.
- Doing nothing but silently judging your former friends and realizing they’re no longer worth your time.
- Sipping the groupthink Kool-Aid and joining your peers in perpetuating attitudes that keep rape culture alive and strong.
It’s entirely possible to encounter insensitive language so often that you just tune it out, thereby passively allowing rape culture to continue. We may be unaware of the justice around us, scared to intervene, unmotivated to intervene, or otherwise unable to step in and positively impact the situation.
Here’s the story I encountered at the wedding that reshaped my perception of Jesse and had me wishing I responded differently.
The night before the wedding, Jesse, another college classmate and fraternity brother named Steven, and I went out to a bar. A pair of 22-year-old women who just graduated college began chatting with us and taking rounds of shots together with us. I was not drinking, so I vividly remember what happened. None of us were attracted to these girls but kept talking with them and dancing with them because all of our other friends had already left the bar and gone to bed. Steven and I eventually went back to our hotel leaving Jesse alone. I asked Jesse the next morning how his night ended up.
“I grabbed some boobs on the dancefloor,” Jesse loudly responded in the hotel hallway. “We didn’t even make out; we were just dancing and I cupped her tits… Yeah, she was not hot. Like I was doing her a favor. I don’t even remember her name.”
I said something along the lines of ‘wow’ and asked how the woman reacted and what happened after that.
“I think I just left after that. I didn’t ask, I just went ahead and grabbed them, but she wanted it,” Jesse said.
While I didn’t react in a way that approved of Jesse’s apparent sexual assault, I didn’t say anything more. When discussing this encounter with another college friend, he said Jesse told him the girl asked Jesse to touch her like that. I asked a couple other friends their thoughts on what happened to gauge their reactions which ranged from shock to excitement to caring solely on how hot the girl was. I truly regretted not talking to Jesse afterward to explain why groping someone without consent is not ok, how it could skew the woman’s perceptions on normal flirting, and how the incident could have lead to him being arrested and jeopardizing his future. It was my first failed opportunity that weekend to appropriately combat rape culture.
Approximately 13 hours of increasingly heavy drinking the day of the wedding resulted in one of the groomsmen, Adam, became unable to form coherent sentences, let alone locate his cell phone around 10:30 p.m. So, Adam stayed at the wedding reception’s venue and eventually passed out on the floor there. Eventually, the facility staff called the bride after 1 a.m. and said Adam needed to be taken home. Adam’s wedding date and newly minted girlfriend, Chloe, was also fairly inebriated but made it clear she did not want Adam sharing the hotel bed with her after that embarrassing escapade and leaving her to fend for herself the rest of the night. Yet, Jesse wasn’t satisfied with that answer. We’ll get back to that.
Without Adam, the rest of the groom’s entourage of rambunctious and stumbling friends and I went out to an Irish pub for more drinks and dancing after returning to the hotel. I left around the bar around 12:30 a.m. to sleep, as did most of the remaining crew. Only Jesse and Chloe remained as Chloe was playing the role of Jesse’s “wing woman” to help him meet a girl and presumably go home with her.
After returning from an Irish pub at about 1:30 a.m., I overheard Jesse and Chloe arguing in the hotel hallway after discovering Adam never made it back from the wedding reception. I received word of this development a few minutes earlier when I saw the groom calling me and answered, “What’s up, I’m in bed.” The bride was on the other end and told me she sent a Lyft to pick Adam up, and that the poor wedding venue coordinator would help get Adam into the car to take him back to the hotel. I promised to help Adam find his way to a room and planned to let him sleep on the floor of my room rather than have him drunkenly knock on the door where he planned to stay with his girlfriend.
Jesse, who was in a drunken stupor himself at this point, told Chloe that Adam was going to sleep in the bed with her in the hotel room he paid for regardless of what she thought because Chloe knew what she was signing up for when attending the wedding with Adam. Jesse invited Chloe to sleep outside (in 30-degree weather) if she wasn’t willing to let Adam sleep with her in the same bed. Jesse proceeded to call Adam and nudge him to get back to the hotel because his girlfriend is “an 11” for the 100,000-person city where the wedding occurred, thus Adam so he should sleep with her tonight because she’s better looking than the competition. It felt as if Chloe’s desire not to see Adam that night didn’t matter. As the Jesse left to go to his own bed, I said Adam should stay in my room to “make life easier.” He pushed back, but I said Adam shouldn’t stay with his girlfriend if his girlfriend clearly didn’t want him there. Jesse’s harrowing response was that “Chloe is just playing hard to get.”
Finally, Adam arrived at the hotel just before 2 a.m. looking completely plastered. I escorted him to the elevator and I suggest he stays in my room because his girlfriend is not in the best mood to see him. He resists and went to his room anyway. I know I should have stopped him. Chloe let Adam into the room within 20 seconds of him knocking. When I asked Adam how things went with Chloe after letting him in the next morning, and if she was mad, Adam said “things are probably fine” because neither of them remembered the previous night. As blurred as these encounters were over the weekend, what remained certain was that things were far from fine.
Would you have responded differently? Have you faced a similar situation that reshaped your relationship with someone or your views on society more generally? Please share your story and thoughts on rape culture in America today in the comments section below.
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